DC Adventure

During poetry week, the entire 10th grade traveled to Washington, DC to see the shakespearean play Othello. I have to say that this was one of the best field trips that I have ever been on. I say that because we were able to venture into DC to buy breakfast and lunch, which I have never been able to do on any other field trip. My day in DC began with a trip to smoothie king, which is the best place to get a smoothie in the entire world. I ordered my usual medium light and fluffy, which is a blend of strawberries, bananas, orange juice, and turbinado. That smoothie was quite delicious, and went well with the two bagels that I ate at McDonalds. I would have rather eaten at Dunkin Donuts, but the line there was out the door. At 9:30, we had to go to the theater across the street from the Verizon Center to see that play that we came to see. As we entered the theater, I noticed that the audience was made up of mostly high school students, and I had a feeling that many of them would be disruptive during the play. The first act began shortly after we were seated, and to be completely honest I cannot remember anything that happened during the first act. This was either due to the fact that I had not taken my ADD medication that morning because it reduces my appetite, or because nothing really happened during the first act. I think that the first act lacked action because it was setting up the main events of the play. The first act was also very long, and after it there was an intermission that lasted for about fifteen minutes. The real action came during the second act, which is when a lot of people die. The main character, Othello, goes mad when one of his lieutenants, who hates Othello, lies and tells Othello that his wife is unfaithful to him. Othello becomes paranoid and ends up killing his wife, only to find out that he has been lied to and subsequently kills himself. I thought that the second act wasn’t that bad, but it would have been better if the audience was better. Othello is supposed to be a tragedy, but for some reason many members of the audience began to laugh at some pretty graphic scenes in the play. A good example of this comes when Othello has an epileptic seizure, which drew a great roar of laughter and talking from the crowd. The crowd was so bad that one of the actors had to calm the audience down before he spoke. Another bad audience moment came when the lieutenant that betrayed Othello stabbed his wife, which caused somebody to yell: “Got him!” Really loud. The play ended around 1:00 which is when the teachers said it would end, and allowed us to have 90 minutes for lunch, but we were forced to stay after the play for a Q&A with the actors, who took forever to get on stage. That was really annoying because I wanted to have enough time to eat and digest my food while I walked around DC. The other annoying thing was that we had to answer the questions that that one lady asked us by either standing or sitting. By the time that was over, we had less than an hour to get our food, which was almost an impossible task. I, along with a group of guys, quickly walked to shake shack to enjoy some burgers and milkshakes, but we could not get a table because it was so packed. We found a table that was being used by one lady, but there was enough room to sit there, and we then went to the counter to order our food. I ordered a hamburger, a hot dog, fries, and a black and white shake. While waiting for our food, we tried to determine whether a family that was sitting in front of us was amish, or some other weird religion. We got our food, and ate it. The odd family left, but as they walked out they seemed to have more people in it than we had thought. After I finished eating, I quickly regretted ordering so much food because I still had to go to lacrosse practice. After lunch we went back to the buses and left. I had a lot of fun on that field trip.